I also received a 7th star from another blogger who has since deleted his/her blog. I just want to say thank you to that person in case they’re still hovering about the blog world, but I don’t want to mention any names in case they’d prefer to be anonymous, since I’m not sure if they’re blogging anymore.

Thanks so much, friends!

The instructions for this award are simple:

1. Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2013’ Award

2. Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there are no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ the blog(s) with their award.

3. Let the blog(s) that you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the instructions with them – (please don’t alter the instructions or the badges!)

6. And as a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog… and start collecting stars…

Yes – that’s right – there are stars to collect!

Unlike other awards which you can only add to your blog once – this award is different!

When you begin you will receive the ‘1 star’ award – and every time you are given the award by another blog – you can add another star!

There are a total of 6 stars to collect.

Which means that you can check out your favourite blogs – and even if they have already been given the award by someone else – you can still bestow it on them again and help them to reach the maximum 6 stars!

Ok, here are my awardees. This is probably the most complicated factor in blogging for me. I picked the below people for various reasons. I know there has to be some of you out there that I missed and that’s the part I hate about selecting people. If I forgot you, please don’t be offended, it’s just a lot of blogs to sort through and I get kind of overwhelmed, which creates a chaotic state of disorganization for me. If I left you out, call it overworked axons and executive functioning issues. That’s really all it is, because I value all of my friends here in the blogging community, and am impressed on a daily basis by the content on your blogs.

I have 4 stars to give out, so take as many of those or all of them if you want. Happy New Year!

Well, I got through Christmas. We didn’t have anything Christmas related here because of varying religions and also people often have tragic memories or views pertaining to Christmas. The facility was decorated with generic seasonal stuff, mostly snowmen and Wintry things. I could have gotten out on a pass to see family, but I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. It’s one of the main reasons why I’m in here. I did not want to celebrate Christmas when it would have been Valentina’s first. I had already gotten her some presents. She and Gary Oldman (II) are the only ones I bought for prior to all this. I would have gotten other people things, but it was still early yet. I’m kind of a procrastinator shopper, but I do put a lot of thought into gifts. When I get out, I don’t want presents. I want to forget that Christmas occurred at all. That will defeat my purpose. Maybe it’s avoidance, but I don’t want to face it. I told Pete to tell everyone to return anything that they got for me. I know he understands and that he will. My parents will have a hard time with that though. I understand. In their own way, they have to mourn me as a result of my mourning of Valentina. When does grief become selfish? Is it selfish of me to deny them the holiday with their son, in order to spare myself the grief of the death of my baby so close to Christmas? Pete will talk to them, and hopefully they understand. Maybe if they want to give me stuff, they can save it for my birthday or they can just unwrap it and give it to me little by little randomly throughout the year. I think I’d be ok with that, even though deep down inside I’d know they were Christmas gifts. That’s the best I can do to compromise.

Speaking of Gary Oldman (II), I miss her a lot. I’m beginning to want to get out just to see her. I feel awful that I’ve abandoned her. Maybe she will hate me. I think I will get out after New Year’s, because I really need to see her. However, then I will feel guilty about abandoning Bogart. I miss Howard too actually. And I miss my harmonica. I was thinking about something the other day. I realized that there is so much media in the world today, online and everything’s reported on the news. Little stories that are simple events in peoples’ lives, but have some kind of impact as a result. Back in the day, these events were experienced by people, and they’d share the stories through word of mouth, passed down from person to person. Someone would experience something cool and just tell it repeatedly. They’d live their lives and as they got older, the story would become one of those great moments in their lives that would never be forgotten. It would become a part of them. Then, people who are Howard’s age, would encounter new people in life, like Howard encountered me. And they share these stories that aren’t on the internet and have never been heard before, it only comes straight from the source. There’s an incredible value in that, I think. The world can benefit from hearing these things via internet, but something’s lacking when 100s of people are sharing the stories on Facebook. It’s not personal, it seems less real, less intimate. It seems like people just wanting their fifteen minutes of fame, so it seems less genuine. They get sponsors and donors and college funds and publicity. That’s not the same. Not the same at all. They get rewarded beyond their own internalization of the events. Rewarded for living life. Because life is just filled with random good and bad things. Shit happens to everyone. Some people make it global knowledge. Others keep it amongst their intimate circle of friends. I like Howard’s stories. I like how pure they are, how genuine and raw. I’m not a huge fan of the internet and Facebook and all that stuff anyway. I’m kind of a retro guy. This is why I don’t include any of it in my novel I’m writing. And I can share some of my stories through Amon-Re, which is a disguise in a way, but comfortable for me. It’s complex and there’s some irony in that I’m sure. But I prefer it to sharing my daily activities on Facebook. It’ll go in my writing, or in my journal, and that’s that.

Regarding Bogart, he’s going to continue getting the treatment three days per week for 6 weeks. Then to prevent recurrence, he will get it once per week. If they are fully effective, he might get out after the 6 weeks, and receive the treatments on an outpatient basis. That depends on why he’s here though. He told me he believes he committed a crime, but he’s confused about the circumstances. Clearly, whatever he did, he was not mentally capable of making proper decisions, which is another reason why his mother is his guardian when he’s 22 years old. In that way, he’s kind of not accountable. He’s the kind to physically assault someone without being aware that it’s a bad thing, or understand consequences of the effects of that for himself or the victim.

Anyway, I actually think the treatments are working. He agrees and says they aren’t as bad as he feared they would be. He says he feels like crap for several hours after, and not quite himself for the rest of the day. But the next day he feels normal, and he is definitely becoming less manic, less distracted, and he says the voices have gone away. He still has his quirks, and he is still socially inept in many ways. But I think that’s because his disorder prevented him from learning how to have social skills, prevented him from being human. If he gets out eventually, I wonder if I’ll ever see him again. I kind of want to. I kind of feel like adopting him in some figurative way. But I don’t know how possible that is. I can’t foresee how the treatments will work and what he would be like outside of the institution, or how I could just live a normal life without having to be on top of his activities 24 hours per day. I mean, would he be dangerous for Gary Oldman (II)? I know for a fact he’d never hurt her intentionally, but I wouldn’t put it past him to cause her some injury because of something stupid he might do, some careless thing that he’s clueless about. Again, ignorant of consequences or common sense. He has no common sense whatsoever. He needs social skills training. I just decided that. And I’ve been doing that in terms of Kendall Goth Girl. But Bogart’s sex life and approach to girls and getting laid is a whole other story. Let’s just say that if it weren’t for his looks and his accent, I don’t think his approach would otherwise get him very far.

The theme song for this journal entry is “Basket Case” by Green Day, because it’s so relevant for so many reasons, and because old school Green Day is fucking awesome.

For a chronological list of links to all the journal entries, refer to the Journal Entries Index Pagehttp://wp.me/P41c99-J

For posts that aren’t journal entries, feel free to explore the Categories in the left side bar or the other pages above, including the Character Directories which list the posts each character is mentioned in.

1. There’s the guy who tries to be sneaky and jerk off by me and also attempts to grope me. Well we were all up getting our lunch one day and I was in front of him, Bogart was beside me, and the guy reached around and grabbed my dick. I turned around and shoved him and said “don’t ever fucking touch me again.” Bogart grabbed the guy by the throat and pushed him up against the wall. I had to tell him to stop, I could have easily punched the guy or something, but he’s like 70, I can’t do that. Bogart let him go and he ran off and we didn’t see him for the rest of the day.

2. Sadie still asks to see my dick. But yesterday, again I said no, but Bogart finally said, “oi, ya can see mine if ya wan’.” She said ok, so he held open his pajama pants and she looks down and says, “oooh it’s big.” He was real happy about that. She asked if she could touch it and he said yeah, but I had to intervene because that’s not right. He called me a wanker and laughed.

3. There’s this guy who reminds me of Christopher Lloyd in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Looks like him, talks like him. I asked him if he’s ever heard that before and he said no but he’s been called Reverend Jim. He’s always trying to trade stuff for cigarettes. Either so he can get cigarettes or to give someone else cigarettes. I think he takes the cigarettes for himself in order to use as a trading tool for other people, since I’ve never seen him smoke. It’s like he thinks he’s in prison or something, but the problem is, no one really has stuff to trade here besides stupid or personal things. He showed me a collection of things he’s got in his room like underwear, socks, chap stick, books, photographs, stuffed animals. Nothing is of use to him. Trading seems to be just his hobby.

Now onto Bogart. Bogart got the treatment Friday and he got it again this morning. The only difference I notice is that it seems to be making him angry and feel defeated. He wants to spend more time in our room because he’s embarrassed about the treatments. I try to tell him that nobody knows or cares what’s going on, but he’s convinced they think he’s a “nutter”. Yeah, he’s worried that crazy people think he’s crazy. There’s no explaining to him the lack of sense in that.

He seemed so confident when I first met him. Confident and happy, but manic. Now this place is breaking him down. He only reveals this insecure, fragile part of himself to me. He’s not very self aware in general, but he’s self aware enough to put on a façade for the other people. I did get him out of the room today and we hung out in the common room after he rested from his procedure, so that’s good.

His mother came on Saturday to visit and told him she researched Dr. Robert Keitel from Greenfield Psychiatric, Experimental Unit and figured out that the guy was a fraud. She had no idea who could have known so much about Bogart or his case, but she never thought for a minute that one of the patients could possibly be involved. After determining his lack of existence, she never made the phone call to stop the treatments. I’m still thinking that I made an impressive attempt though and luckily Bogart agrees.

Anyway, whatever happens, I just want Bogart to be ok. I wish I could believe that he will be able to live a normal life and function like a normal person–even though I know “normal” is not an appropriate way to express it, it’s what people understand–but the truth is I don’t think he will. Whatever. I’m going to try and ignore that pessimism and just hope that maybe the electroconvulsive therapy will be effective for him after all.

Regarding Kristin, she designed me this chart and didn’t explain it, but was certain I’d understand it’s purpose.

Then she gave me this scrap from one of her notebooks with some of her own rejected words. She thinks the words that she decides she doesn’t like, will prove useful for me.

Lastly, she gave Bogart this drawing she did of him, but again, he didn’t like it and passed it on to me. It kind of looks like him, but it’s dark and kind of freaky so I understand why he doesn’t like it. He has a more amiable presence and appearance for the most part.

And, on a positive note, this cute goth girl arrived not too long ago. She was being shown the common room and Bogart and I looked at each other, then we started laughing because we recognized that we had the same exact look in our eyes. I haven’t laughed since we kicked each other’s asses. I also haven’t thought about sex in a while, but that girl set something off. My dick woke up as if from a long sleep and was like, “huh?? what?? what’s going on??” Anyway, her name is Kendall.

So now it’s a matter of whether or not sex is possible here, and if it is, which one of us she’ll want to fuck. With Bogart around, I admit I’ve got some competition. But now that I’m thinking about it, I think I’ll let Bogart have her for two reasons. My name is Wall Grimm and these are the reasons why Bogart can have the goth girl.

WALL GRIMM’S REASONS FOR LETTING BOGART HAVE GOTH GIRL

1. I will be getting out of here sooner than him, if he’s ever able to get out. I’ll have plenty of options when I get out.

2. I definitely don’t want him to decide that he does want me to bend over because if he doesn’t get laid soon…well, he needs sex, that’s obvious to me. ‘Nuff said.

The theme song for this journal entry is “Paranoid” by Garbage because the cute goth girl looks exactly like Shirley Manson.

For a chronological list of links to all the journal entries, refer to the Journal Entries Index Pagehttp://wp.me/P41c99-J

For posts that aren’t journal entries, feel free to explore the Categories in the left side bar or the other pages above, including the Character Directories which list the posts each character is mentioned in.

Shortly after I called Bogart’s mother, staff came in our room, took Bogart, and he came back with instructions about prep for the shock treatment. He returned and said something like this, “wot da fock! it dinnit work, it dinnit work! its goin’a ‘appen! fuck fuck bugger wot we goin’a do Constable, ‘elp me stop it!” He went on and on with a lot of words, basically repeating himself. I still don’t know if I’m spelling the accent right, but you get the idea, Invisible Journal Reading People. I tried to explain she hasn’t made the call yet. He was determined to eat after midnight and before the procedure.

So when Wednesday morning came around, and there had been no opportunity for him to eat or drink anything yet besides grape juice, they came to get him. It was a fight. We were in the common room waiting for breakfast when they came for him. He ran and fought and they didn’t want to sedate him prior to the anesthesia, but they called in more forces to attempt to contain him. He was shouting out to me to help him. I tried to step in and tell them to stop so I could talk to him and calm him down. They wouldn’t listen to me, since I’m just a patient, and I myself was eventually hauled off and restrained, then sedated, because they thought I was antagonizing him. He ended up strapped down on a gurney, shouting and crying before they wheeled him away.

He returned several hours later, in a wheel chair, brought into our room and helped onto his bed. I asked if he was ok, they said it’s normal if he’s a little out of it for an hour or two, and that he’s having some muscle spasms which can happen sometimes, but they will wear off. Then they left. He was lying on his side with his back to me so I went over to see him. He was kind of twitching and just staring, and not looking at me. I said, “Bogart? Look at me. How you feeling?”

He looked at me, not with the same vitality he always has, kind of weak, and he said, “they raped me.”

I said, “no they didn’t, they couldn’t have, you just had a procedure, you’re not serious, are you?”

“Feels like they raped me.”

“Physically feels that way or emotionally?”

He didn’t answer.

“Bogart, it was really traumatizing what you just went through, because you fought so much, it was against your will. That is violating, so I’m sure you emotionally feel that way, it makes sense.”

“…yeah…” Then he whined, “me ‘ead ‘urts. it ‘urts so bad.”

I got him a wet face cloth and put it on his head. I suddenly felt like we were prisoners. Not like in jail, but in some kind of unjust imprisonment situation. Like hostages or prisoners of war. It was us against them. We were alone. I tried to help but I have no voice, they won’t listen to a mental patient. They don’t bother to individualize. I mean, I’m mentally coherent, I’m just depressed. But all the patients are treated the same regardless of the psychoses. I’m treated just the same as the guy who eats his own shit.

Bogart leaned over and began to vomit on the floor. This resulted in his shitting his pants. I couldn’t move him while he was puking because he was resistant, but once he was done, I helped him up, walked him to the bathroom, helped him undress and get in the shower. I tossed his clothes on the bed then I went and told the staff to come clean up the mess. I went in the bathroom with him and shut the door. He wanted to shower with the curtain open so he could see me. He wasn’t really washing himself, instead he was just sitting on the floor of the shower, leaning against the shower wall. He didn’t want me to leave.

After a little while he began to talk. He said, “I don’ like to be raped.”

I just said, “yeah.”

Then he told me about when he was in England, his mother’s boyfriend used to rape him when he was a kid. It went on for years until, when Bogart was about 11, he killed the guy. He told me he cut the guy’s throat while he was sleeping. Then he added that he was so angry, that he ended up cutting off the guy’s head and threw it outside into the street. That’s when he first started receiving psychological treatment. He said before that, he was quiet and timid. He said the voices began telling him to kill the guy several months before he actually did. The voices started years before that. They were his friends, but he says that now they’re mean and cause him trouble.

His mood changed for a minute when he thought about sex. He said there are no girls worthy of fucking besides the poet girl, I don’t think he knows her name is Kristin. But I was like, “no, don’t even try.” He mocked me saying she’s my girlfriend, but it was with a sense of humor. I was like, “no. just no sex here.” He said that he’s not “bent” but he’d fuck me anyway because I’m the prettiest thing here. I told him to fuck off, that’s not happening. He told me if I bent over, he could just close his eyes and pretend I was a girl. I think he was serious. “Fuck off Bogart, don’t even think about it.” “Let me know if ya change ya min’.” “Not happening. Don’t bring it up again.”

I let him sit there until I peaked out and saw that they finished cleaning up everything, and they had hospital pajamas there for him folded on the bed. I helped him stand and held his arm while he washed himself. If I didn’t hold his arm he would’ve have fallen over. When he was done, I shut off the water and handed him a towel and held his arm while he dried off. He dressed while sitting on the bed, then laid down and fell asleep.

Bogart is a complete tragedy. But by helping him and being there for him, it’s been benefiting me. I’m beginning to feel less depressed. I know that life is a series of good things and a bunch of shit. It’s too painful to think about Valentina, but I know I will be able to get passed it, never forgetting, but I will be able to move on in my life. I’m not sure when. But having Bogart as a distraction helps to prevent me from dwelling and sinking deeper into that depression. He’s given me a focus, and helping him makes me feel like the Grimm I used to be, before I got so heavily into drugs and became self absorbed. I used to be the go to guy. Then I was the guy no one could rely on. I want to be the go to guy. And though Bogart is a mess, at least he makes me feel like that again.

For a chronological list of links to all the journal entries, refer to the Journal Entries Index Pagehttp://wp.me/P41c99-J

For posts that aren’t journal entries, feel free to explore the Categories in the left side bar or the other pages above, including the Character Directories which list the posts each character is mentioned in.

I have been award the Blog of the Year 2013 Award by http://yadadarcyyada.wordpress.com/ and http://middlemaybooks.com/ Thank you so much! That gives me a total of three stars. This is an amazing feeling for me because I honestly never expected Grimm to win any awards, let alone three. So I can’t thank you enough!

Anyway, through the process of trying to pick out bloggers to award, I realized I am the worst blog award giver in existence. I try to figure out a process by which to be fair and not exclude people, and it becomes very complicated, and still I fear I leave people out. Also, since last time around, I awarded everyone that followed this blog, there will likely be many repeats. Please forgive me if I’ve given you the last award and you declined honorably. It would have been an extremely complicated process to figure out who declined, so please feel free to not accept the award once again. That’s my fault, no obligations.

The way I decided this time around was to award anyone who ‘liked’ my last 4 posts. Then I added in a few extras. If you feel you’ve been unjustly neglected in this list, let me know, I’d be glad to add you in.

Also, once again, forgive my “form” notification, since there are a lot of you to notify, and I may not be able to notify you all in one sitting, but I will be by.

I think I want to get out of here after the new year. I just don’t want to be around friends and family for Christmas. It would have been Valentina’s first Christmas.

Prior to coming here, I was practicing filtering and controlling my abilities and I was making good progress. But here, I’ve had to block all over again, because if I allowed the inner workings of the people here to enter into my psyche, then I will probably go insane. However, that was in the beginning. Now I’m learning to make it stronger than ever. I’m finding that if I focus on creating and maintaining a shield around me, I’m able to know more and more people’s thoughts and experiences, without it penetrating me. I understand what’s going on with them, know things, and the negative or unstable stuff just bounces off my shield. But whatever, just more boring shit to write in my journal.

Kristin drew this picture of me, but it doesn’t look anything like me. It says, “and the answer is in his knee.” hmmm

Then she drew this picture for Bogart, it’s a manic dragon. But he gave it to me because he doesn’t trust it. He thinks it might have some kind of energy that will make bad things happen in his life. He also doesn’t want to be manic anymore.

Then she gave me this poem. She’s pretty intense.

Regarding Bogart, on Tuesday I had an idea. First, I ruled out trying to talk to the doctors and staff on his behalf. I’m just a suicidal/homicidal/recovering substance abusing/sex addicted/depressed patient with PTSD who appreciates a decent latte. They would never listen to me, no matter how much sense my argument would make. If they’re pushing for shock therapy for Bogart, then they truly believe that’s the best next approach in terms of treatment for him. The first thing I needed was my cell phone, which the staff had.

I went to the staff/nurse station and asked if I could take it to my room to copy down all my contacts from my phone for the people I want to call. We get to make 10 minute phone calls almost whenever we want, but the calls are monitored in terms of frequency and time limit. They don’t want anyone monopolizing the one phone reserved for the patients. The nurse said it was great that I finally wanted to use the phone, that I felt like talking but I couldn’t have it in my room, I could sit outside the station. I said that it was a lot of numbers and I’d rather relax on my bed to do it since it will take some time. She said no. I was prepared for that, so I said ok whatever and sat down to do it. That was Bogart’s cue to come over and do his thing. He started talking to me, right by the nurse’s station, and barely took a moment for breath. Talking and talking and finally the staff told him to go into the common room. He said ok and left, but came back a minute later. This happened three times, and the third time he began talking ceaselessly to the staff, since they were right there. At that point, they caved and told me to just take the phone to my room, since they know he pretty much goes where I go.

Bogart and I went in there and I instructed him to be sure to shut the hell up. I also had to explain that nothing I was about to say was true, that it was all lies to get what he wants. I had to be certain that he wouldn’t believe the things I was about to say because it would probably make things worse for him if he did. Then I dialed *67 to block my number and called his mother. I told her I was Dr. Robert Keitel (as in Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel) and that I was calling from Greenfield Psychiatric, Experimental Unit. I said, “my job is to review the cases of patients whose treatment has not been successful. Many times the final alternative is electroconvulsive therapy, which is essentially inducing seizures. Repeated seizure can cause brain damage, I’m sure you know. Basically, the reason why I’m calling you, is to give you the opportunity to retract your initial agreement to use this treatment on your son Neil. If you do so, there are any number of alternatives we can recommend in order to better help Neil and to avoid permanent injury to his brain. If this brain damage occurs, the symptoms prior to convulsive therapy tend to be aggravated. Also, on the more manic and aggressive patients, their psychoses tend to become significantly more pronounced.”

After bullshitting my way through a series of questions about the alternatives and how I learned about Neil’s case, blah blah blah, I convinced her to call his doctor to cancel the treatments. She asked me what she should say to explain why she changed her mind. I said, “you don’t need to tell him you spoke with me, in fact, I’d rather you didn’t. Unfortunately in medical psychiatrics, it can often be run as a business, and in such cases as Neil’s, he would essentially be only a number. You see, they need to use this therapy on a certain number of patients per year and gain success from it, in order to uphold the standards of it’s treatment. For every failure they should have at least two successes. It’s really all about the insurance companies and, well, money, to be blatant about it. In other words, if you mention that you’ve spoken to me, then he might discourage you from following through with your new decision. Since we offer safer, more effective alternatives, we are sort of in an adverse position against the psychiatric profession. It could put some medical companies out of business. However, that’s your choice if you want to mention me, but you probably would regret doing so. What you can say is that you have rethought the matter and have chosen to do further research on the subject, and on alternatives, prior to agreeing to that therapy.”

Of course, I had no idea what I was talking about, but when you’re making shit up, it’s easy to make it sound good. All the while I was talking to her, Neil was pacing around the room with his hands over his mouth trying not to laugh or speak. He was very anxious and elated and in the most hyper and uncontained state. It was the greatest struggle I’ve ever seen anyone make just trying to be quiet.

When I got off the phone with her, he looked at me, I said she was going to call the doctor to cancel the treatments. He jumped across the room, almost freakin’ flew, and landed on me on the bed. He grabbed me and was squeezing me so I almost couldn’t breathe. Before I could push him away, he got up, grabbed my face, pointed directly at it, and said, “ya fuckin’ bugger! wot a mate! best I ever ‘ad! pure bloody genius! brilliant brilliant brilliant! cheers cheers cheers me Constable!”

Anyway, Bogart can’t say I didn’t try. Also, I don’t know much at all about psychiatric treatment, shock therapy, or Schizoaffective Disorder, so who knows whether or not the procedures would be best for him. I tend to trust doctors. The injustice only came in because he had no say in the matter. But there’s only so much I’m able to do to help him, which is pretty much along the lines of nothing at all.

Theme song for today’s journal entry “Flagpole Sitta” by Harvey Danger, which was actually my favorite song when I was about 9 or 10 years old, something like that.

For a chronological list of links to all the journal entries, refer to the Journal Entries Index Pagehttp://wp.me/P41c99-J

For posts that aren’t journal entries, feel free to explore the Categories in the left side bar or the other pages above, including the Character Directories which list the posts each character is mentioned in.

The craziness here is beginning to drive me crazy. It’s less about keeping to myself, and more about adjusting to the psychoses of the other people. You have to figure out their habits and tendencies. You need to know what sets them off and whether or not it’s dangerous to set them off. I’m not afraid, nobody really bothers with me. If I did have to face that violence, I still wouldn’t be afraid. Instead I’d fight to the death if I had to. Strange thing is, I haven’t felt violent myself. I’m typically prone to agitation and violence, but these days I don’t seem to have the energy for that. Partly it’s due to the intensity of my depression about Valentina. I’m not motivated to express myself with words or actions. I just have become a kind of ghost. Another part is that my focus is consumed by my novel that I started. I’m kind of walking around with the story and scenarios circulating in my mind. It’s a good thing, but it’s keeping me separate from everyone else in many ways. That is still a good thing.

The last part of it pertains to Bogart. He’s an agitation for many of the people because of his incessant talking and overwhelming energy. He sets people off often. I feel compelled to monitor the other people on behalf of him, because he’s blind to their cues. I wait until I see them getting to that level of an outburst or an attack, then I distract him, which helps to avoid those confrontations most times. Other times I’m too late and there’s either a verbal or a physical altercation. If it’s verbal, he just laughs and walks away, or he says he will kill them and threatens until they back off. It’s the only time he speaks slowly with true intent, and everyone takes that seriously. If it’s physical, he’s always the more dangerous one. I tend to break it up sooner than the staff. I distract him to stop it. He’s easily diverted onto other things. Then he laughs and walks away from it, almost grateful for the opportunity to fight. It’s strange that I’m not the one wanting to fight. It’s even stranger that I’m breaking the fights up.

I remember when he first came in, all the women loved him and all the men wanted to be his best friend. The women still love him, even those he agitates at times. The men still want to be his best friend, except for a few now, who want him gone.

I know my journal has been focusing a lot on him, but he’s kind of my life at this time. I’m here all day long every day with these people, eating, sleeping, shitting, showering, smoking, going to group, and a therapist comes and talks to me once per week. But he still follows me around and never stops talking. For some strange reason, he hasn’t driven me nuts yet. I get a sense that he’s doomed, and nobody else but me notices, and nobody else but me cares.

One thing I hate is how the staff treats everyone like children. Like stupid, inconvenient children. I get a lot of that baby talk from the staff. That melodic up and down articulation like when you’re speaking to toddlers. “Now Grimm, I know you’d rather be sleeping, but you really need to go to group, ok?” I think they wonder when I myself am going to explode, and because I’ve been so internal, it will likely be the most volatile explosion of them all.

I’m not ready to leave here though. I don’t feel it yet. I know it will be obvious when I’m ready to go. If I leave now, I won’t feel any different than when I came in. Here I have distractions, but nothing has changed for me emotionally or psychologically. Basically I feel that if I go home, if I don’t leave the apartment, I will kill myself, might even catch myself off guard. I used to feel that I would kill someone else if I left the apartment. It wouldn’t be purposeful, but I’d probably just beat the hell out of some random guy, and not stop, until I beat him to death. I guess that’s changed kind of. As I said I don’t feel that violence inside of me, not here. But maybe out in the world and dealing with all my family and friends and responsibilities, the stress and trying to conceal what would be going on with me would eventually build up again. I have to be ready to be a real person. Right now, I’m Temporary Grimm. I feel like Jackie Paper from “Puff the Magic Dragon”. But I’m not the only one who might end up being Jackie Paper. For me it’s temporary. For Bogart, it could be permanent.

Bogart was diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder. He claims it’s the wrong diagnosis. But he also says that he often talks more in order to avoid hearing the voices. Excessive talking has become his personalized defense mechanism. It also antagonizes his mania. Apparently they’ve tried multiple medications throughout his life. He was recently on a new med that seemed to be working, but then he got worse, as he says. He alluded to a specific event that made his mother commit him, but I got no details about that. So now, they talked with his mother about electroshock treatment and she agreed. He doesn’t want it, but he has no choice, because she’s his guardian, so basically he has no rights. They’re going to start the treatments this week, I think it will be three times per week. He found this out yesterday. He’s been frantic, manic, and hostile all day. He’s never hostile to me. I think I’m the only person he trusts and I don’t know why. He’s trusted me and followed me around like a lost puppy ever since he arrived here. I guess the voices like me or something. As for me, I realized that unfortunately sometimes it takes being around someone more fucked up than yourself, to realize you’re kind of ok after all.

After supper last night, I was taking a shower and he stormed in the bathroom, pulled open the curtain, and burst into tears, shouting and panicking. He was begging me to help him. He didn’t want the treatments. Then he sat on the floor against the wall, holding his knees up to his chest, and whimpered that he was afraid. I feel so bad for him but I don’t think there’s anything I can do. That’s when he said he trusts me. He said he knows I’ll try, and it won’t be my fault if it doesn’t work. He said he knows I’m good even though I write so much. He said he’s been good because he hasn’t forced me to show him what I’m writing, normally he wouldn’t trust that. But he called me a poet, he thinks it’s all just a bunch of poetry.

Poetry by Temporary Grimm Paper. I’m Grimm Paper, and Bogart is Puff the Manic Dragon. I told him that and it confused him because he’d never seen the cartoon. Once I explained the story, he thought that was hysterical, laughed for about 20 minutes. He said I am definitely Grimm Paper and he is no doubt a manic dragon, but he’s certainly no puff.

Theme song for this journal entry is obviously “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter Paul and Mary.

For a chronological list of links to all the journal entries, refer to the Journal Entries Index Pagehttp://wp.me/P41c99-J

For posts that aren’t journal entries, feel free to explore the Categories in the left side bar or the other pages above, including the Character Directories which list the posts each character is mentioned in.

I just created a page in order to archive all the posts of the novel which Wall Grimm has begun writing. Below is exactly what the page says, but I’m posting it here because I think it’s a good introduction, and I don’t expect most people to go to the archive page right away, or at all, necessarily. A little later this morning I’ll be posting the first chapter of the novel Amon-Re by Wall Grimm.

The AMON-RE page says:

I wrote the novel Amon-Re when I was 22 years old. I revised it again a few years later. I returned to school, finished my B.A. and got my Master’s, then I wrote The Opera. The character Amon-Re is, for some reason, my favorite character that I ever created. I knew the novel needed a lot of work, and it has been on the sidelines awaiting significant revision. I felt, however, that the story was worth it and I wanted Amon-Re to exist. All my other past novels have been burned in campfires because they weren’t worth the time involved in revisions. Amon-Re currently only exists in one printed version of the novel. Part of it I began to transcribe onto a flashdrive last year, but I never got around to completing that process.

At this time, as I have created “The Journal of Wall Grimm” blog, and I want to do more here than just journal entries, I decided that, since Wall Grimm has expressed in the past that he wants to be a writer, I would attribute the novel to him. It makes sense because I think it is the perfect novel for him to write, especially since I wrote it when I was in my “Grimm” days. I’m posting the novel as if Grimm is writing it. We can assume that the novel is raw, prior to edits, because Wall Grimm will be writing it in real time, as we pretend it doesn’t yet exist in its entirety. That gives me the freedom to post my novel despite the fact that I’m aware it needs some work.

The novel takes place in a nonspecific time, in a nonspecific couple of cities. There are no computers or cell phones. I never wrote that in because I wanted a timeless feel, if not an altogether retro atmosphere. Amon-Re is a drug addict, but he’s also a genius, and the book can be a little hard core at times. He is a writer and a poet, so if you follow my Sage Doyle blog, you may notice I’ve posted of couple of the poems that I wrote for the novel on that blog. The book is kind of long, since it needs editing, but then that just enables more posts.

Each post will be about a chapter length. And…I hope you like it, but if not, that’s ok. I’m just glad to finally give Amon-Re the opportunity to exist.

Whenever Bogart is otherwise occupied, or passed out from excessive speaking, I take the opportunity to sit with the brilliant poet girl whose name I learned is Kristin. I’m kind of amazed that I’m willing to listen to her talk after having Bogart going on all day long every fucking day. Compared to him, she seems quiet. She has a quiet voice but she speaks fast. She has inspired me even further to begin my novel. I’ve drafted it all out. I haven’t been able to read much since Bogart arrived. He follows me around and talks to me even when I’m sitting there with my face in a book. Hopefully I’ll be able to write. He doesn’t follow anyone else around like that.

He’s beginning to drive some people nuts though, which is a weird way of putting it, I know. One woman screams at the top of her lungs occasionally, “shut up! shut up! just shut up!” Then he goes to talk to her to ask her what’s wrong, is she ok, and he hovers over her until she goes into fetal position. Then he laughs and says, “blimey! she’s a bit mental, yeah? I can’t ‘elp ‘er.”

The staff seldom involve themselves and there are varying degrees of mental illness. Some people are more violent than others. One guy is constantly trying to grope me and often will stick his hands down his pants and masturbate in the common room. Sometimes he tells me to come sit by him while he’s doing it, fucking freak. And Bogart is always right there pointing out every little quirk each patient has. Sounds like an asshole thing to do, but he’s not trying to be an asshole.

One thing I found out about Bogart is that he has no one really. He only has his mother, who is his legal guardian, though he’s 22. For some reason he wasn’t seen as being fit to make decisions for himself. I don’t know any details about his problems, his diagnosis, or why he’s here. But his mother committed him and didn’t come on Saturday when we could have visitors. When Iona, Sharly, and Pete came to visit, since I can only get a few visitors at a time, Bogart came in and sat with us and talked the entire time to them. That was fine with me, let me off the hook. I’m beginning to feel really bad for him though, because I don’t know how he could ever function in life, as I make more observations about it. He’s easily distracted and jumps from one subject to the next. Sometimes he gets agitated with his own thoughts and becomes obsessed with retracing how he got to any number of subjects. Mostly he just disregards when people are hostile towards him, but now and then he says in all seriousness that he will kill them if they don’t shut the fuck up. That makes them back off. Then he turns back to me and laughs and keeps talking. He was a great source of intrigue for Sharly, Iona, and Pete. Iona kept leaning over to me and saying “he’s pretty hot” which kind of pissed me off though I don’t have a right to be jealous. Sharly just kept saying to him, “you need to relax sweetie.” But then he’d respond like he never heard her say that. He’d instead just ask her about being a lesbian and ask all kinds of personal questions. He’s so innocent in many ways, oblivious to true social skills. He was genuinely curious and not even being perverted about it. From anyone else, the questions would have been really offensive.

Anyway, enough about him, I’m going to talk about Kristin again.

She gave me this self portrait she did with crayons since she’s been here:

Then she gave me this poem that she tore out of her notebook because she didn’t like it:

Then she gave me this poem which she said she wrote for me:

I think I’ll start my novel tonight, but I have to pretend to sleep until Bogart is actually sleeping. He jerks off before going to sleep, and believe it or not, he will talk to me while he’s jerking off. He’ll be talking about stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with sex or jerking off. Then now and then he’ll say something like, “ohh yeah, ‘at’s perfect, I’m a really good fuck, yeah?” Then he’ll laugh and expect me to be amused like it’s this fantastic joke. He’s kind of clueless. Yeah I feel bad for him.

For a chronological list of links to all the journal entries, refer to the Journal Entries Index Pagehttp://wp.me/P41c99-J

For posts that aren’t journal entries, feel free to explore the Categories in the left side bar or the other pages above, including the Character Directories which list the posts each character is mentioned in.

This guy came in on Wednesday and it’s great having him around because he never fucking shuts up, so he takes a lot of the focus off of me. People were always like, “why are you so quiet” or “you gotta communicate” and that was annoying because I kind of wanted to just keep to myself as much as possible. The strange thing is that people who don’t shut up tend to piss me off, but not this guy.

My name is Wall Grimm and these are the reasons why the talkative guy doesn’t piss me off:

WALL GRIMM’S TOLERANCE FOR THE CHATTY GUY

1. He’s Cockney, which makes listening to him kind of cool. Now I’m serious when I say this guy never shuts up. But every now and then it’s so quiet that the silence is almost a sound, because we’re not used to hearing the silence. Then we get all disoriented and we look and he’s fallen asleep. He’ll just go on and on blah blah blah blah fucking blah, and then out of no where, he stops and falls asleep. He exhausts himself from talking. The thing about his being Cockney is that 1/3 of the shit he says is interesting. 1/3 nobody can understand what the fuck he’s saying. 1/3 you kind of space out on, but his accent makes it kind of cool just hearing him talk.

2. He’s a charming psychopath. He’s charming, the women are in love with him and the guys want to be his best friend. I say he’s a psychopath only because he’s fucking nuts, or at least manic, but entertaining.

3. He’s therapeutic. The guy makes me laugh internally, which is pretty impressive considering the state I was in that brought me here.

So yeah, I know a lot about this guy because all he does is talk. I know more about him than I know about some people I’ve known my whole life. I was the fortunate one who got this guy as my roommate. Now I don’t know if they arranged that purposely. Maybe they thought he’d aggravate the hell out of me. Maybe they knew he’d kind of cheer me up in a way. It’s just a weird thing that they put him in my room, considering I never say a word, and he’s only quiet when he’s asleep, and even then he sometimes talks in his sleep, usually swearing profusely. He talks when he’s eating, food flying out of his face and nearly choking now and then. If I’m in the room when he showers, he keeps the bathroom door open and keeps talking even though I don’t understand a word he’s saying over the running water.

My question is, if he’s alone and no one’s there to hear him, does he continue to talk?

Anyway, when he first arrived, and came in the room, I was shaving my head, not bald but cutting it set at 5 which was enough to get the blue out, and shaving my face at a 1, which isn’t the smoothest shave, but we’re not allowed razors. He came in the room tossed his bag on the second bed and a nurse introduced us. The first thing he said was, “bloody ‘ell! why ya cu’in’ out ya ‘air?! like da blue, I go’a make a bloody jumper ou’a ‘at!” Not sure if I’m spelling the accent in right, but it was baffling to me that I understood him. Then he just started talking and never stopped. The nurse sidled out of the room.

He told me about Cockney rhyming slang and how he and his “china” as in china plates meaning mates, created their own rendition of it to give each other nicknames. He has two nicknames, one for his first name, the other for his surname. He goes by Bogart. He described the two names. His real name is Neil Kent. For Neil, they rhymed it with liquor and ale, then just shortened it to Lick. So yeah, one of his nicknames is Lick. Then he told me how they got Bogart out of Kent. Kent rhymed with buggered and bent, then they took celebrity names that were similar to the first word. So buggered became Bogart. With my name, first he asked if I named myself after the “tele” program. Noooooo, did that long before that show existed. Then he asked if it was short for Wallace and Gromit, which was a new one to me. Wall Grimm, makes sense, but no. Then he called me a wanker and said he was joking obviously it’s the Brothers Grimm. Yep. Then he gave me a nickname. Grimm rhymed with proper and prim, proper rhymed with copper, then changed to constable. So he calls me Constable. He said it’s just a variation of the real slang. I don’t know why he didn’t call me Hopper as in Dennis Hopper, since that is similar to copper. But he was enthusiastic about the constable association and it’s a pretty cool nickname so I’m not complaining.

He likes my Eastwood and my Stepping Wolves, wanted to borrow them but I just shook my head. His response was a Cocknified version of a French accent, “Curse you Grimm, you are too clever for us naughty people.” Which didn’t make any sense in the context, so I think he was waiting a while to make that reference. He doesn’t always make sense anyway. I said, “Monty Python.” He was boisterously excited that I got the reference and he laughed. He has a loud laugh like he’s the happiest guy in the world. I haven’t yet gotten around to asking him why he’s in an institution, he seems happy. It’s one thing he hasn’t even brought up himself. But after this interchange with the Monty Python, he got quiet and just stared at me with a sketchy kind of look in his eye. Then he said he would bet that he could kick my ass. I said I doubted it. Then he said we should “‘ave a go” at it. I agreed.

Then we stood up and started to fight, just punching each other, a genuine fight, I don’t think he was holding back so neither was I. I think he was trying to kill me, but it seemed in the end to be a fair match, neither of us was really winning. It seemed a while before staff finally broke it up. But one guy had me restrained. Another guy restrained Bogart. Bogart was telling them it’s no big deal we were done we were just “‘avin’ a laugh.” Then the cognitively impaired girl whose name I learned was Sadie and is still in love with me, went up to Bogart while he was restrained by the staff guy and kneed him in the balls. Then I started laughing. It was the first time I laughed in a long time. I laughed aloud and I couldn’t stop laughing. Bogart was calling the staff guy a bugger telling him to let him go so he can drop down into fetal position since he was in a lot of pain. But he was laughing while he was grimacing, calling me a wanker, a git, a bugger, and a cunt for laughing, but he thought it was funny too.

They let us go, I sat down because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t stand, and Bogart was on the floor gripping his “bollocks” but still laughing and still calling me a cunt.

I haven’t done a theme song for a while because I haven’t been myself. But now I’m feeling more like myself than I have in a long time. So my theme song for this journal entry is “Anarchy in the UK” by the Sex Pistols, dedicated to Bogart.

For a chronological list of links to all the journal entries, refer to the Journal Entries Index Pagehttp://wp.me/P41c99-J

For posts that aren’t journal entries, feel free to explore the Categories in the left side bar or the other pages above, including the Character Directories which list the posts each character is mentioned in.